Hobbies And Interests
Pesticides
Pesticides from farms and cities are a major source of water pollution. Pesticides include weed killers, insect killers, fungus killers and rodent killers. They are everywhere: the home, the school, the park, the farm and the forest. Acute exposure to pesticides can cause nerve, skin, or eye damage. People may feel dizzy, have headaches, feel nauseous and fatigued. Long-term exposure can have serious effects, including many types of cancer, such as brain, breast, bone, ovarian, prostate, testicular, liver and leukemia. Children with high levels of pesticides in their bodies are six times more likely to have neurological disorders similar to autism than children with low levels.
Flame Retardants
Flame retardants are another chemical pollutant that is found worldwide. Flame retardants make furniture harder to burn, but the side effects of these chemicals might outweigh their benefits. Flame retardants can behave like hormones in the body. Hormones are substances that the organs use to "talk" to each other. Thus, flame retardants can give false messages or wrong messages to organs, causing problems like cancer, reproductive problems, birth defects and neurological disorders. The problem is not limited to new products that contain flame retardants. Even if new products no longer have flame retardants, the older products are still leaching chemicals into the environment.
PCBs
Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are used in hundreds of industrial products, such as machine lubricants, plastics, rubbers, and dyes. There are 209 different types of PCBs. PCBs get into the water and accumulate in fish, shellfish, marine mammals and waterfowl. Humans get PCBs when they eat fish and other seafood. In animal studies, PCBs caused liver damage and liver cancer. They are also believed to cause cancer in humans. PCBs can dramatically affect unborn babies. Those who were exposed to PCBs before birth grow up to have learning and memory problems.
Dioxins
Dioxins are the unwanted chemical byproducts of industrial processes such as the manufacture of pesticides. They also result from bleaching paper pulp to make white paper, and smelting metallic ores to obtain pure metals. Once in the environment, dioxins eventually get into dairy products, meat, fish and shellfish. Dioxins get stuck in fat tissue and can stay there for decades. Acute exposure to high levels of dioxin can result in abnormal patches of skin and altered liver function. Long-term exposure results in cancer, problems with the immune system and neurological disorders. The fetus is particularly vulnerable to dioxins.